Automatic enrolment requires employers to put eligible staff into a workplace pension and contribute to it. Assessment happens every pay period, not once, and the duties apply from the day you first employ someone — including a single employee.
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Eligibility depends on age and earnings, assessed each pay period rather than settled once. Someone who was not eligible last month can become eligible this month because they worked more hours.
That is the part small employers underestimate: it is an ongoing assessment, and a worker whose hours vary crosses the threshold in some periods and not others.
Assess every worker, every pay period
Age and qualifying earnings decide who must be enrolled, who can opt in, and who can join.
Enrol the eligible
Into a qualifying scheme, with the employer contribution paid on top of the employee's.
Write to your staff
There are statutory communications with deadlines, and skipping them is a compliance failure even where the pension itself is right.
Handle opt-outs correctly
Workers may opt out within a window and are entitled to a refund. You must not encourage it — inducement is a specific offence.
Re-enrol roughly every three years
Staff who opted out are put back in, and a re-declaration of compliance is filed.
Keep the records
Assessments, communications, opt-outs and contributions, retained for the required period.
Minimum contribution levels are set in legislation and apply to qualifying earnings. Both employer and employee contribute, and the employer share is a real cost of employing someone that is easy to forget when quoting for work.
Rates and earnings thresholds are reviewed periodically — check the current figures on gov.uk rather than a number you remember from setup.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Yes. Automatic enrolment duties start from the moment you employ someone, and a single eligible employee triggers them.
They can opt out themselves within a set window and get a refund of their contributions. You must not induce anyone to opt out, and doing so is a specific offence with penalties.
A company with only directors and no employment contracts may be exempt, but you have to tell The Pensions Regulator rather than simply ignoring the letters.
Yes, at re-enrolment roughly every three years, and sooner if they ask to opt back in. Their earlier opt-out does not carry forward, which is exactly the point of the re-enrolment duty.
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